Batman Vol 2 23.1: The Joker
| NextIssue = | Quotation = I taught him how not to feel sorry. How not to get caught up in feelings. I taught him that with guilt comes weakness. | Speaker = Joker | StoryTitle1 = Time to Monkey Shine | Synopsis1 = In the middle of a job, the Joker recalled how he once lived with his abusive Aunt Eunice, who was eager to separate him from his childish attachment to a monkey puppet he called "Gaggy". She would wash his skin with bleach, and brag of how she murdered his uncle Howard by giving him a . Snapping back into the present, the Joker resumed his gang's torture of a zookeeper at the Gotham Zoo by allowing a massive snake to constrict and then consume him. Despite his gang's enthusiasm, the Joker was forlorn, and walked away without watching the snake finish its meal. Instead, his attention was caught by a Gorilla and its child, playing with a small stuffed monkey. Longing for Gaggy, he broke into the enclosure, gassed the mother gorilla, and took its child. Attempting to create a family life with the kidnapped gorilla as surrogate child, Joker dragged it and his sidekick Flame Dupree to live in a house whose owners he had long-since killed - though their rotting corpses remained. Flame suggested that they ought to name the little gorilla, and the Joker enthusiastically began wracking his brain for a worthy name. Gleefully, he settled on Jackanapes. The Joker intended to raise Jackanapes to live the life he wished he'd had. While Aunt Eunice had raised him strictly, punishing him for bad behaviour with beatings, he made sure to reward Jackanapes for deeds done well. While he had been fed meagre meals by his aunt, he raised Jackanapes to provide for himself by stealing candy from children. While children threw stones at him as a boy, he made sure that he and Jackanapes were the best of friends, with a relationship like father and son. Eventually, the Joker taught Jackanapes how to build devices of death and destruction - an activity he excelled in. He taught the gorilla remorselessness; that the services they provided in crime were just - not to mention fun. After learning that a newly elected city council-woman had called for the closing and demolishing of Gotham Zoo, Joker and Jackanapes decided to do something about it. During a fly-by inspection by dirigible, Joker and Jackanapes snuck onto the aircraft, and began killing those onboard. Knowing that the council-woman herself was present as well, the Joker saved the honour of dealing with her to his son, even as the Bat-Signal lit up in the sky. Despite the Joker's excitement, Jackanapes was reluctant to use the device they'd created, and shed a tear as he turned its dial, causing the councilwoman and her guards to mutate. Unfortunately, the mutated victims turned on the pair, and knocked them into a freefall from the dirigible's cabin to the ground. As Joker fell, he called out for Jackanapes to activate his mechanical wings, and avoid death, but to no avail. He survived the fall to find that Jackanapes had fallen into the river, and likely drowned. All he could do was laugh, realizing that he was owed a refund for all the swimming lessons he gave the gorilla. As much as he cared for Jackanapes - having saved the zoo meant that he could go back and find a replacement. | Appearing1 = Featured Characters: * Supporting Characters: * Antagonists: * Aunt Eunice Other Characters: * Max * Wedge * Flame Dupree * Uncle Horace * Batman * Robin * Charlie Locations: * ** Items: * Vehicles: * | Notes = * This issue takes place before . | Trivia = | Recommended = | Links = }}